Tel Aviv [Israel], January 12: Fire and rescue services in the embattled Gaza Strip are only partially operational, the local civil defence authority said on Saturday.
Some of the emergency vehicles in the cities of Gaza and Khan Younis are no longer running because there are no spare parts to maintain them, according to a statement from the Hamas-controlled authority.
Spare parts warehouses and workshops have been destroyed in the course of the war by Israeli airstrikes, it said.
In addition, a severe fuel shortage has rendered more than half of the rescue service vehicles in the Gaza Strip non-operational, it said.
The Civil Defence appealed to regional and international humanitarian organizations to urgently bring spare parts and equipment to Gaza so that the emergency services transport could be maintained.
The Gaza Municipality has told Al Jazeera that 75 percent of water wells and more than 100,000 linear metres of water networks have been damaged due to Israeli attacks.
The municipality reported it is facing extreme difficulty in delivering water to displaced people due to the destruction of water and sewage networks.
The municipality called on humanitarian organizations and the international community to urgently intervene to provide the equipment, machinery, and maintenance materials necessary for maintenance operations in the water and sanitation sector, stressing the humanitarian and moral responsibility placed on their shoulders to save lives in Gaza City.
Meanwhile, US President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, was scheduled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later on Saturday to secure a captives deal, an Israeli official has told Reuters.
A second Israeli official told the news agency some progress had been made in the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, which Egypt, Qatar and the US have mediated.
Efforts to secure a deal to return the Israeli captives held in Gaza and stop the war have ramped up before Trump's taking office on January 20.
The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, that saw Palestinian fighters kill some 1,200 people and abduct another 250 to the Gaza Strip.
Israel responded by pounding Gaza with airstrikes and sending ground troops into the sealed-off coastal territory with the stated aim of defeating Hamas, which had controlled Gaza until then.
Almost 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to Palestinian estimates
Source: Emirates News Agency
